'Kinky Boots' cake wins Best in Show at design competition

For baker Ashley Holt, nothing about this design competition was a piece of cake. And that's actually including the cake.

Holt, the owner of a Brooklyn cake studio, won Best in Show at the annual New York Cake Show on Sunday with a life-size replica of a bright red, high-heeled, over-the-knee boot, complete with gelatin sequins.

The entry, a nod to the Broadway musical "Kinky Boots," in keeping with the competition's Broadway theme, took Holt about four months of on-and-off work to make. While the decorations are edible, there's no cake underneath; it's meant to be looked at, not eaten.

"I slept 30 minutes before the night of the show just to get it all done," Holt said after her win.

The show is the brainchild of Lisa Mansour, whose family has a history in the professional cake decorating business. Onlookers can see demonstrations of decorating principles, like making flowers, and of course ogle all the over-the-top designs.

Among the other cakes were designs referencing shows including "Wicked," ''The Lion King," ''Beauty and the Beast" and "Phantom of the Opera." Previous Broadway shows, like the collection of carnivorous plants in their orange pots entered to represent "Little Shop of Horrors," got their due as well.

The Cake Show, now in its fifth year, had almost 200 entries, and "every year, they're getting better and better," Mansour said.

Holt agreed: "The level of talent under this roof is phenomenal, so it is a humongous honor," she said.